Revisiting the morality of the Trolley Problem

The Coffee Shop
1

I came across a report today detailed the results of a large survey conducted on the Trolley/Fat Man Problem, and though the findings weren’t surprising, they did raise another question that I hadn’t considered much prior to. The survey found that across all demographic measures–age (among adults), gender, race, religion, education level–9 of 10 respondents would pull the lever and kill one innocent to save five, but paradoxically, 9 of 10 said they would not push the fat man in front of the train to save the same five. Obviously, psychology (diffusion of responsibility, in particular) and instinctive human behavior account for the disparity to a large degree, and from the evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. But the question these results raised in my mind is, how does this square with the notion of an objective and fixed morality, and how does it apply?

If there is an objective and fixed morality, there must be a right and wrong answer to the question. Is the answer knowable, as with most other questions of moral consequence, and if so, what is it? Is it a mathematical calculation in terms of lives saved? The moral duty to abstain from putting another innocent life in jeopardy regardless of the purpose it serves? Would the number saved in one scenario versus the other change the moral implications of action or inaction?

I’m having difficulty reconciling the disparate responses, both from the evolutionary perspective and the divine view of morality, without drawing the conclusion that the results reveal an unfixed and subjective morality, shaped more by what we feel instinctively than what we deduce rationally.

I’ve posted my opinion on this problem before (duty to act only if I were acting in official capacity as an agent of the railway, in which case it becomes a mathematical problem; as a private citizen/bystander, the moral obligation is to refrain from interference if it means killing an innocent), but I don’t think we’ve thoroughly combed through this aspect of the problem.

My theory is this: the survey results point unambiguously toward a subjective and shifting morality that relies heavily on our innate self preservation instincts and stems from millions of years of evolution as social interdependent beings. To grossly oversimplify, it’s beneficial to perform an act to save five, but not at the *expense of ourselves. So when faced with differing circumstances, our strong “moral” objection to the idea of pushing an innocent in front of a train now trumps our prior “moral” reasoning that would compel us to pull the lever, even though the same harm to others resulted from our action. It’s noteworthy that the respondents claimed both decisions to be the moral choice; I don’t doubt that they believe this to be true.

(*I believe it’s easier for most “moral” people to sacrifice their own life during a valiant act than to live with the thought of being viewed as a murderer, even if it’s only their own scorn they endure)

For the subscribers to the top-down theory of morality, do you think it’s morally defensible to both pull the lever and refrain from pushing the fat man onto the tracks? And what do you make of the survey responses?

2

First off, your link took me to an article about a shark attack. Interesting, but not, I don’t think, what you were going for.

In response to your questions and thoughts, here are mine.

I believe that there is an objective and fixed standard of morality. In other words, there is a right and wrong answer (or maybe it’s better to say that there is a “best answer”) to any given moral dilemma.

That said, I think a large part of the human experience is the search for those answers. We do our best (or sometimes not) to try to understand these issues and dilemmas and to choose the best answer. Our ability to understand and our interpretation of the objective standard certainly varies from culture to culture, person to person, and over time and space.

“For the subscribers to the top-down theory of morality, do you think it’s morally defensible to both pull the lever and refrain from pushing the fat man onto the tracks? And what do you make of the survey responses?”

I would need to see the survey to offer an opinion.

3

I warned you all. Sharks are the next big threat to our way of life. First they hijack a thread, next it’ll be airplanes. And trolleys.

4

I agree in principal that it’s risky to make assumptions about surveys without analyzing the language, but this appears to have been a straight-forward reading of a standard and well know problem - do you pull the lever in the first scenario, and do you push the man in front of the trolley in another to achieve the very same end?

Assuming those are the questions they answered, what do you make of the disparity?

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

5

Is the fat man a lawyer?
.

6

It would be hard to argue there is an objective and fixed morality - that would mean that this objective morality would have had to exist in “seed form” for the billions of years before there were even any life forms in the universe. Rather than assume there was an objective morality waiting out there for us to grow into it - it is more logical to back the notion that morality is an artifact of evolution.

Regarding the study, the results aren’t surprising to me at all. The idea of the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the one is easy to accept in the abstract, and still easy to accept when pulling an abstract lever to sacrifice an abstract person for the many . . . . but facing the prospect of having to push a real live human being under the train, it gets harder to employ the rule.

7

I agree in principal that it’s risky to make assumptions about surveys without analyzing the language, but this appears to have been a straight-forward reading of a standard and well know problem - do you pull the lever in the first scenario, and do you push the man in front of the trolley in another to achieve the very same end?

Assuming those are the questions they answered, what do you make of the disparity?

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

Could that not come down to the ability of humans to separate their actions based on the method being used? In this case, pulling a lever to kill someone is a TONNE less personal than having to actually push someone in front of a trolley. Pulling the lever, you don’t instantly feel that cause and effect like you would if you push someone directly.
M~

8

I believe this may be the study referenced in the program.

Permissibility judgments for these cases
were widely shared, independently of the order in
which they were presented in the session: Denise’s
action was judged permissible by 89% of subjects
= 0.05], while Frank’s action was
judged permissible by 11% of subjects
= 0.05]. These proportions differ significantly [χ2[1,
N = 2646] =1615.96, p < 0.001], with an effect size
of w = 0.78. This result indicates that, as a group,
subjects reconstruct and make use of the information
that varies between these two cases in determining
their moral judgments. Such information might relate
to the principle of the double effect, or might also
include the fact that Frank makes physical contact
with a person, whereas Denise does not, or that Frank
introduces a new threat whereas Denise redirects an
existing threat.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2006.00297.x/full

9

Is the fat man a lawyer?

Team in Training triathlete.

10

Regarding the study, the results aren’t surprising to me at all. The idea of the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the one is easy to accept in the abstract, and still easy to accept when pulling an abstract lever to sacrifice an abstract person for the many . . . . but facing the prospect of having to push a real live human being under the train, it gets harder to employ the rule.

Agree. But can we say that one, or either, action constitutes a moral decision, or that morality as its currently defined retains any meaning if not?

I can only defend acting similarly in both instances, or abstaining from action entirely. It seems incomprehensible that someone could defend one action and not the other in terms of morality.

11

Based on what you’ve provided, and in answer to your original questions, it seems to me, at first blush, that the two problems have no distinguishable moral difference. Both involve the sacrificing of a human life as the only alternative to the loss of 5 human lives. Assuming there are no extenuating circumstances or complications (like the 5 people are mass murderers), I would think both flipping the switch and pushing the fat man onto the tracks are equally defensible positions.

I agree with others who stated that this shows a psychological aversion to personal contact with the “victim” more than it shows a reasoned judgement on the moral “rightness” of either choice. I think plenty of people think capital punishment is morally ok, but would shy away from being the guy who delivers the injection. Hence the mechanisms we frequently put into place so that people don’t know which of the multiple executioners actually delivered the “kill shot.”

I’m not sure the survey or the problems shed much light on whether an external objective standard of morality exists, so much as it talks about how human beings interpret or view morality, which, in my view, are two separate things.

12

Nope- I agree with Lorenzo on this one.

An analogy being the bombadier in a plane flying high above a city and pulling the bomb release vs. being a soldier on the ground with only a knife and the task to kill as many of the enemy hand to hand as possible.

An act becomes more repugnant the more “real” it’s perceived to be especially when our sensory modes- smell, hearing, touch, acute sight- come into play. To continue with the war time theme, the dehumanization of the enemy and the over the horizon means to kill make the task of rationalizing and then sleeping with the results much easier than if you have the memory of the hot, gurgling blood, the fear in the eyes of the victim and their screams turning over and over in your mind.

We are animals after all; morality has to be a vestige of some survival advantage that developed when all violence was personal.

13

I agree with others who stated that this shows a psychological aversion to personal contact with the “victim” more than it shows a reasoned judgement on the moral “rightness” of either choice. I think plenty of people think capital punishment is morally ok, but would shy away from being the guy who delivers the injection. Hence the mechanisms we frequently put into place so that people don’t know which of the multiple executioners actually delivered the “kill shot.”

Certainly the same phenomenon comes into play, but it gets more complicated when dealing with the murder of an innocent. I’d be willing to bet that more death penalty supporters would be willing to pull the switch or deliver the injection to a condemned man than would push the man onto the tracks.

I don’t think anything sheds light on whether or not an objective morality exists–it’s an unanswerable question, ultimately. But I think the study of human behavior can tell us a great deal about the most likely scenario, and I think this strongly points to a utilitarian model of morality employed by the majority, even though they may subscribe to the objective standard belief.

14

"I’d be willing to bet that more death penalty supporters would be willing to pull the switch or deliver the injection to a condemned man than would push the man onto the tracks. "

Maybe, but many jurisdictions have processes in place so that there are multiple “executioners” and none of them know who actually delivered the injection/shot/flipped switch, etc to address this very concern.

"But I think the study of human behavior can tell us a great deal about the most likely scenario, and I think this strongly points to a utilitarian model of morality employed by the majority, even though they may subscribe to the objective standard belief. "

I don’t think it tells us anything about “likely scenarios” as far as objective morality is concerned. I do agree that it sheds some light on how humans actually behave. After all, that’s what these types of surveys and studies are designed to do.

15

I can only defend acting similarly in both instances, or abstaining from action entirely. It seems incomprehensible that someone could defend one action and not the other in terms of morality.

But they are not the same acts. Throwing the fat man in front of the trolley deprives him of his choice to act or not act.

In the case where you are the one to choose between 1 or 5 where neither the 1 nor the 5 can choose to act, you choose one over 5. In the case where the 1 is also free to choose, it is a different matter altogether to choose for him.

I have always found this problem more difficult when the 1 tied to the tracks is related or known to the one who can throw the switch. For example, your child is the 1 and the 5 are strangers or lawyers.

16

"But I think the study of human behavior can tell us a great deal about the most likely scenario, and I think this strongly points to a utilitarian model of morality employed by the majority, even though they may subscribe to the objective standard belief. "

I don’t think it tells us anything about “likely scenarios” as far as objective morality is concerned. I do agree that it sheds some light on how humans actually behave. After all, that’s what these types of surveys and studies are designed to do.

Poor wording on my part. I should have said it tells us a great deal about the nature of what people refer to as the moral instinct. Whether an “objective morality” “exists” is probably inconsequential, since it’s our conceptualization of such a thing that drives behavior. I think there’s a disparity between people’s conceptualization of morality and the true nature of the impetus they attribute to it, and I think these results strongly support that opinion.

17

But they are not the same acts. Throwing the fat man in front of the trolley deprives him of his choice to act or not act.

In the case where you are the one to choose between 1 or 5 where neither the 1 nor the 5 can choose to act, you choose one over 5. In the case where the 1 is also free to choose, it is a different matter altogether to choose for him.

I have always found this problem more difficult when the 1 tied to the tracks is related or known to the one who can throw the switch. For example, your child is the 1 and the 5 are strangers or lawyers.

They are similar enough. Both single victims are unaware of their fate and ultimately lack the ability to decide because the choice resides in another.

The latter problem isn’t a problem for me whatsoever. I’d save my son over five strangers every time.

18

They are similar enough. Both single victims are unaware of their fate and ultimately lack the ability to decide because the choice resides in another.

I am sorry. I did not see the part that said the fat man was unconscious. Regardless, I think it makes a difference. Otherwise, we would not have an issue harvesting organs from the unconscious.

19

“Morality” is the realm of philosophy, and “My Morality” will barely reflect how I apply my moral guidelines as I live microsecond to microsecond. That is why when a person proclaims “I am a Christian” or “I am a good person” you can just feel the universe sigh a little.

20

If you’re watching a train from an overpass, completely oblivious to the man behind you preparing to toss you overboard, I think it’s fair to say you’re unaware of your fate. It’s no different than Joe Sixpack eating his lunch on the tracks below, oblivious to the train approaching from behind.